COCKATOO'S GALORE

 I just love quilting baby quilts on my HQ Simply Sixteen as they give me a chance to try new patterns on a small scale.

My girlfriend, Donna, made this beautiful cot quilt (based on a Meags and Me pattern) with Australian Cockatoos as the main feature, and I offered to quilt it for her.

I chose a pounce pad pattern with hearts to use on the top and bottom sections and used a HQ ruler for the dark blue section.

I free-motioned around the cockatoos and then did a paisley pattern to fill in the background.  

Isnt he just the cutiest !

The reverse was a plain pale blue colour and it really highlighted the quilting/

I'm sure once its bound, there's going to be one happy little grandson.

DINOSAURS GALORE

 Its been quite a while since my last post but that doesn't mean I haven't been busy!!

I discovered a lovely pattern by Elizabeth Hartman called Dinosaurs and as the large full size quilt was a bit big for me, I chose to make the smaller version which is only 48" x 48"

I selected an array of colourful batiks which I arranged against a Navy Blue background.  Perfect for either a boy or girl as a play quilt.

The pattern was not a complicated one but it did require organisation.  The first step was to cut all the strips of both the background Navy and the colourful batiks for each type of dinosaur and sort them into plastic bags.  I needed two different colours of each dinosaur, of which there were 4 types:  Brachiosaurs, T-Rex, Triceratops and Stegosaurus. There were also 3 different type of plants:  Fern, Vine and Cycad

T-Rex, cycad and fern

Stegosaurus, fern and cycad

Triceratops, fern and vine

The assembly was easy as the whole quilt top is straight line sewing.  Very clever how the dinosaurs take shape and they come together quite quickly.  Once each dinosaur block is assembled, you then piece the quilt top together and then onto the quilting.

I had fun deciding on the quilting patterns for each dinosaur and of course, the background. I changed thread colours for each dinosaur and background.

Background:  Free motion swirls and pebbles

T-Rex:  Free motion Baptist Fan

Stegosaurus:   Wavy Ruler work

Triceratops: Clamshell Ruler work both horizontal and vertical

Brachiosaur:  Free motion Cobblestones

Plants:  Straight line Ruler work

Border:  Angle Striped Ruler work

 Clamshell quilting

Cobblestone quilting

Wavy Ruler work

Angle Strip Border

I used a multi-coloured backing which hid any mistakes or irregularities in my free motion quilting and also changed thread to match each colour change.  

The border was quilted in an angular strip pattern (courtesy of Natalia Bonner video)

I have another Elizabeth Hartman pattern which is now on my bucket list to do :)

See you soon, keep sewing